I'm late coming to this thread, and maybe this has already been reviewed, but an excellent on-line talk by Sarah J Buckley, author of Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering, made me realize for the first how nightmarish a scheduled c-section is for the newborn.  

He is in *no way* prepared for "life on earth".  All his systems are geared to a fetal life, and he is, quite literally, ripped from that world and forced to function - fast and well - in one for which he is not prepared.  The stress must be phenomenal.  At least if his mother has already begun spontaneous labor, the labor began on his terms, and both he and she have already started preparing him hormonally for extra-uterine life.  But to be in the continuous warm and wet and dark and then... HORRORS!  you have to breathe and stretch out (mighty fast) and have every one of your senses assaulted.  

She likened it to a really loud alarm clock, covers ripped off, cold air blasting, and really bright lights on at 3 am when we're in the midst of a dead sleep, which would certainly get our adult hearts pounding and those stress hormones pumping.  Okay, maybe I added the covers and cold air... but cold *water* would be closer to the experience.  Add being grabbed by the neck and/or ankles and no explanations given.  And no one even remotely familiar to comfort you.  

Surely it is, *at the very minimum*, an act of basic human kindness to the baby to bring him immediately from his mother's uterus to her skin.

Thank you, Sarah.  I think.  (Her website is www.sarahjbuckley.com.) 

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLL Leader  Ithaca, NY  USA
www.normalfed.com


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